Arun Rajaraman

The Cape Town Marathon was on track to become the first Abbott World Marathon Major on African soil, joining the prestigious series in 2026 — contingent on a second consecutive successful assessment in 2025. Unfortunately, weather had other plans, and the 2025 edition was cancelled overnight. In November 2025, AbbottWMM announced that all 2026 Cape Town finishers would receive a provisional star — a silver lining of sorts. I needed a goal race for 2026 and another AbbottWMM check mark, so I reluctantly threw my name into the Cape Town ballot. Given my track record with AbbottWMM ballots, I wasn't holding my breath. And then, against the odds, I got in. Training The 13-week training block kicked off on February 23, and it got off to a rough start — the first week was a complete washout with no running or strength training. The 12 weeks of base-building before that weren't anything to write home about either. This was nothing like the lead-up to recent  Sydney or Boston  ma...

Week 13 (May 18 - May 24) The final week before race day was all about keeping the legs ticking over without doing too much. It started back in Bengaluru with an easy 30-minute shakeout run before catching a flight to Cape Town. Just enough to stay loose for the journey ahead. Once in Cape Town, I kept things simple — a 30-minute easy run on Thursday and a shorter 20-minute jog on Saturday to keep the legs fresh without accumulating any fatigue. Nothing heroic, just going through the motions. The rest of the week was everything a taper week should be: sightseeing around the beautiful city, catching up with friends, and plenty of chilling. The kind of week that reminds you why you signed up for a destination marathon in the first place. Now it's race week, Cape Town Marathon on Sunday — the training is done. Time to enjoy it. Distance: 8.12 miles Workout Duration: 1:20:46 Weight: 70.1 kg 13 weeks mileage: 445.20 miles Week 12 (May 11 - May 17) This was the last week of training befo...

I do a 'reflections' and 'next year plan' blog end of the year. You can read the 2024 one here . Some years, I also do a mid-year check-in to see how I'm trending on my goals/plans, the 2025 mid-year one is here . When I started out the year, I had Boston Marathon in Apr and Malnad Ultra 50 km in Nov on the horizon, race-wise. As with everything, plans change, whilst I ran Boston Marathon and Malnad Ultra, I also ran Sydney Marathon and two other half marathons which weren't in the plan.  I was very fortunate to have had a decent training block building up to Boston Marathon and a decent race too which I have covered here . In Boston, I also got my Abbott World Marathon Major Six stars medal at the finish line for successfully completing all the Six World Marathon Major races around the world, a journey I started in Chicago back in Oct of 2017. The original six races are Chicago, Berlin, NYC, London, Tokyo and Boston. I have listed them in the order I ran them o...

I ran Sydney Marathon end of Aug, you can read more about it here . I have been meaning to run Malnad Ultra since 2022, I have blogged about wanting to participate back in 2022 ,  2023  and 2024 . I finally got around to running it, my second Ultra. My debut was in Jaisalmer last Dec, you can read about that here . I always give myself complete rest of 3-weeks after every marathon, which meant I slip into easy running only by Sep 21 having run Sydney Marathon on Aug 31. However, after my return from Sydney, I ended up registering for a half marathon, my favorite half in my favorite city, you can read about my last appearance at this race and the fun I had during the trip back in 2019 here . At Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon I chose to pace my friend (Gautham CB) for a sub 2-hours finish, both Gautham and I had a lot of fun during the race, the race went per plan, we managed a comfortable sub 2-hours finish, splits are here . From Delhi, I headed straight to Pune for about 10 days...

The thought to run Sydney Marathon this year came when Gautham CB, GCB (runner friend) having finished the Abbott World Marathon Majors (WMM) Six Star in 2024 registered for Sydney Marathon in Jan to claim his 7th WMM Star, GCB promptly called me and told me to register and run Sydney Marathon end of Aug. Initially I rubbished the idea stating, I would be running Boston in Apr (you can read about my Boston outing here ), and that I did not want to run another marathon in 4 months and that I would look at running Sydney Marathon Aug 2026. GCB and Rashmi persisted, I decided to reluctantly give in. But then I also convinced Bharath and Vinay to register which on hindsight, I am sure they'd agree was a brilliant idea. As a few weeks passed by, I came to realize there was a huge contingent of Abbott WMM Six Stars finishers, many of my friends who'd be running the race this year. I can't thank GCB and Rashmi enough that I registered for the race too.  The 13 weeks training block...